Grand Mesa

Special Avalanche Advisory

A Special Avalanche Advisory is in effect for Colorado’s high country through Sunday, June 9. Several large and destructive wet avalanches occurred on Wednesday. With near-record temperatures on Thursday, June 6, and Friday, June 7, more large wet avalanches are expected. Change your travel plans to avoid steep slopes if surface crusts become unsupportable and you sink into wet, unconsolidated snow or you hear collapsing sounds. These are not normal conditions for early June. Adjust your objectives accordingly.

Current Conditions

Unusual weather and snow conditions make for unusual avalanche conditions. June 6 and 7 are good days to dial back your objectives and choose gentler terrain where the consequences of a large, gouging avalanche may not be as deadly. Consider avoiding very steep slopes or slopes where the snowpack is shallow and studded with rocks. As always in the spring, avoid traveling across or underneath steep slopes if you are sinking past your ankles, hear or feel collapsing, or the snowpack is unsupportable.

Avalanche and Snowpack Discussion

June 6 and 7 may be the warmest days of 2024 so far. Those high temperatures follow a week where overnight lows were near or above freezing. There is an unusually large amount of snow in the high alpine of the Central and Northern Mountains for this time of the year. Observers report more and larger avalanches than we often see in early June. Several large Wet Loose avalanches gouged to the ground, similar to this one on Mount Hope. There was a shallow Wet Slab avalanche on an easterly slope near Mount Arkansas and some in the Indian Peaks. The combination of high daytime and above-freezing nighttime temperatures will result in more Wet Slab avalanches like these in the coming days.

Any overnight cloud cover will further limit the amount the snowpack can cool overnight, making avalanche conditions worse and shortening the length of your early-morning safe-travel window. If skies are clear, the snowpack can cool off despite the air temperatures, and you will find a longer window of safer travel. Open slopes are safer than rocky, very steep, constricted gullies. And, of course, slopes less than 40 degrees in steepness are less likely to produce avalanches than more extreme terrain.

Large, overhanging cornices are also a concern. If they fall onto the slope below, a larger avalanche can result as the weight of the fallen cornice gauges deeply into the snowpack. These cornices are also a threat if you are walking on ridgelines, as they can break much further back than you expect, especially during this current stretch of above-normal temperatures.

Weather

You can get current weather forecasts by clicking the map on the CAIC's Weather Forecast page. Our computer Model Forecasts update four times daily and will run through the summer. If you are going into the Colorado high country, use our Weather Stations page to check current conditions.

We will update this avalanche information as conditions change. Click the map to get the latest conditions. Please keep sending us your field reports. We rely on your information to stay current on avalanche conditions across the state. There have been fatal avalanche accidents every month of the year in Colorado, so don't let your guard down.